EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Brave Technology Coop is a multi-stakeholder platform cooperative based in Vancouver, B.C. We work with leaders in harm-reduction movements to reduce preventable deaths from opioid overdose. Our suite of tools allow people to be monitored for safety while they consume substances that place them at risk of overdose, no matter the circumstance or location.

Brave’s products include:

• Buttons for shelters, bathrooms, supportive housing and alleyways

• A mobile app for remote supervision

• A mobile app for community-led overdose response

• Wearables to detect overdose before it occurs tices, which have a proven record of saving lives.

If an overdose is digitally witnessed on any of Brave’s application interfaces, trained housing staff, volunteer community responders, or the professional emergency response network will be activated so that the overdose can be reversed as quickly as possible.

Brave co-designs our products with people who use drugs and harm reduction advocates to address the barriers that typically deter people from seeking overdose intervention. Our tools are anonymous unless an individual’s location must be revealed to keep them safe.

Brave’s approach uniquely unites community connection, Naloxone intervention, and emergency services to respond to overdose in real time. Through research and testing, we have proven that technologies for organizing, alerting, and mobilizing community response to overdoses are both desired and effective.

Value Proposition

Competitive Advantage

Brave’s digital safe consumption tools help people keep each other safe when they use drugs alone or in isolated environments. Brave’s internet-enabled tools and community-response network connect people at risk with the support they need in real time. People who use drugs trust Brave because our products are convenient, anonymous, and provide rapid response in real time.

We are focused on understanding and developing solutions that meet the needs of people who use drugs as a foundation for designing overdose interventions. Brave’s approach is adaptive to user needs and our pilot projects are proving that co-design results in high rates of end user adoption. This helps Brave, and our partners, achieve a common goal: reducing fatal overdose.

Challenge Phase Prize Recipient

Brave’s product design process begins with a technological intervention. Then, we prototype, co-design strategies for improvement, and test our interventions again and again. Once we find what works, we scale up.

Audience

Brave is currently developing four products for circumstances where opioid overdose is a possibility. Our products serve end users who are: using drugs in shelters, public restrooms, supportive housing facilities, and alleyways; using drugs alone or in isolated environments; currently in or transitioning out of substance use treatment; and young adults experiencing opioid dependency.

Goals

Our goal is to make overdose prevention and response accessible to everyone, and reach those most at risk. We aim to: reduce preventable deaths from overdose; enable rapid access to overdose intervention; facilitate extended access to interventions from remote locations. By 2020, we aim to serve 1,000 users/day on our digital platform, increasing exponentially in 2021 and beyond.

Impact

We have calculated that, in North America, there are at least 12 million people who are at risk of experiencing over 56 million overdoses within their lifetimes. If Brave’s products can serve even one percent of this population, we could prevent, reverse, or otherwise impact at least 560,000 potential overdoses and save lives.1